Table 14 presents the overall means and standard deviations of outcome variables of post-death/ funeral information accessibility. Significant differences were observed between the two groups. First, non-service recipients from the comparison group had a lower score on knowledge regarding the procedure for post-death matters (intervention group: 4.53; comparison group: 3.52), knowledge regarding the procedure for funeral arrangements (intervention group: 4.53; comparison group: 3.58), and information access (intervention group: 4.70; comparison group: 4.03), compared with service recipients from the intervention group. The result of the ANCOVA test further confirmed the above findings, indicating that after controlling for the significant different sample characteristics between the two groups, there were statistically significant differences between intervention and comparison groups in the score of knowledge regarding the procedure for post-death matters, knowledge regarding the procedure for funeral arrangements, and information access following the Be-with service (p < 0.001). Table 14. Comparison of post-death/funeral information accessibility between intervention and comparison groups after the funeral M (SD) Outcomes Items measured Intervention Comparison F ratio p partial η2 group (F1) group (F1) Post-death/funeral Knew the 4.53 (0.64) 3.52 (1.19) 60.567 0.000*** 0.349 information procedure for accessibility post-death matters Knew the 4.53 (0.67) 3.58 (1.19) 57.713 0.000*** 0.338 procedure for funeral arrangements Could access 4.70 (0.58) 4.03 (1.02) 38.169 0.000*** 0.252 the needed information Note. Range = 1–5, 1 = Strongly disagree, 5 = Strongly agree; F1 = Funeral, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001. ANCOVA was employed in each item, adjusted with significant different sample characteristics between the two groups (age, place of birth, employment status, family income, living status, time since death). Partial eta-squared (η2) reflects the portion of variance explained by the service after controlling for sample characteristics. For η2, results larger than 0.14 are considered large effects.
4.7 Overall evaluations of the service As part of the service evaluation, the service recipients were asked about the overall evaluation of the Be-with service as well as their perception of the workers’ professional qualities while helping them handle funeral/post-death affairs. Impressively, the results showed that the mean score of the overall evaluation of the service (In general, I felt satisfied with the Be-with service) was 4.86 (SD= 0.43), which was very close to the maximum score of 5.0. And 96.9% of service recipients agreed or strongly agreed with that evaluating statement. Furthermore, of 66 service recipients, there was a 52
